


New Beginnings

by faintlystrange



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, POV Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel), Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, References to Depression, Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24013585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faintlystrange/pseuds/faintlystrange
Summary: New Asgard is familiar to Brunnhilde in an uncomfortable, needling way.
Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	New Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a loose companion piece to my fic, “Leave Me Where I Lie,” because Valkyrie’s history is the same in both. Certain things might make more sense if you read the other fic first, but it isn’t at all necessary!

New Asgard is familiar to Brunnhilde in an uncomfortable, needling way. 

Its squat, whitewashed buildings with colored roofs and square windows. The rolling, endless fields of bright grass, tipping over onto rocky cliff sides that tumble into the frothy ocean below. The wind that bites at her exposed face and neck and whips her hair into her mouth and eyes. It all reminds Brunnhilde of her own village, on Asgard. Where she lived out her childhood with her parents until she’d been chosen as a Valkyrie. 

It reminds her of the village where she chased her father through the waving fields, screaming with glee when he turned and swept her into his arms.

Where she walked along the cobbled paths with her mother, fingers intertwined, pointing at flowers and critters and boats and stones. Where she attended funerals and births. Weddings, christenings, and gatherings. Where she said hellos. 

Where she said goodbye. 

After leaving to become a Valkyrie, Brunnhilde hadn’t been able to visit often. Odin kept them busy. It has been many long, long years since then. Brunnhilde can’t remember how her father smelled, or how her mother’s calloused hands felt against her own. But she will never forget the way they looked at her as she walked away from home, to travel to the city. To join the Valkyrie. Brunnhilde’s father had regarded her with a mix of pride and fear; his right hand clenched so tightly over his heart that she could almost see where the tips of his fingernails dug into his flesh. And her mother…Brunnhilde’s mother had just stared at her, wide-eyed and horrified and still, as if she couldn’t even fathom that her daughter was leaving her.

Not running back into their waiting arms was one of the hardest things Brunnhilde has ever done. 

She only saw them a handful of times after that, during their rare visits to the city and her even rarer visits home. Now, millennia later, she knows that Odin kept the Valkyrie so busy on purpose. He wanted them to sever ties with the places of their birth and become each other’s only family. To trust and rely on each other exclusively and implicitly. As a warrior, strategically, she understands the decision. But as a daughter? As someone’s child? She will never forgive Odin for what he did. If Brunnhilde’s parents hadn’t died during Hela’s first attacks, they died during Ragnarok. As far as she knows, none of her family made it to New Asgard.

All Brunnhilde knows is that she has no choice. Whether or not the village makes something sorrowful twist within her, New Asgard is where she lives, and it is where she is now meant to lead. 

The past year was a haze of worry, frantic action, and more worry. Although Thor was technically still king, and in turn, responsible for settling the people into their new home, Brunnhilde did all the grunt work. She assigned houses, jobs, and resources. She set up import routes, organized fishing, and gathering, and facilitated all communications and exchanges with the neighboring villages. She shouldered the emotional turmoil of her people, distraught and in shambles, after half their already dwindling numbers disappeared in clouds of ash. She held funeral after funeral after funeral, blessing people’s dead children, fathers, mothers, husbands, and wives. She prayed for days on end, hunched over on her knees on the side of the cliff, where she felt closest to the water, and the sky. She whispered ancient words to herself, hands pressed over her chest or deep into the earth until she felt souls lift from bodies and begin the long journey to Valhalla. 

Afterward, she always cried, alone on the rocks, tears running into the water below. She remembered all those she couldn’t save and all those she couldn’t send to Valhalla, and she let tears fall for them too. 

When Thor appears in New Asgard after his unsuccessful battle against Thanos, it is obvious that something had changed in him. He holds himself differently. No longer does he stand with pride, shoulders broad and tall. No, this Thor holds all his limbs close, as if one misstep will knock pieces of him right off. He has war in his eyes, and for the first time in his life, he has no desire to fight.

Once their people are largely settled, and she has a second to breathe, Brunnhilde climbs the rocky hill to the house in which Thor had sequestered himself. She knocks. When he doesn’t answer, she knocks again. She knocks and knocks and knocks until her fingers chafe and bleed, and then sits against the door until the chill threatens to take her toes, and then she descends back down the steep cliff face. Every day for a year, she does this. 

She climbs the hill and knocks, and when he doesn’t answer, she sits and talks. She tells Thor about his people and how they are doing. She tells him about the Avengers, and their ongoing effort to find the infinity stones and reverse what Thanos did. She tells him things she’s never told him before. About her family. About her parents. About the Valkyrie. About Eir. Not once in that year does she see his face. 

Brunnhilde could have easily broken in. She almost kicks in the door hundreds of times, and each time she pauses on the brink of movement.  _ He doesn’t want to see me _ , she thinks.  _ He doesn’t want to see me _ . So she puts her foot down, and turns away, and convinces herself that she is leaving him alone for his own good. That it would be wrong of her to force his hand. It would be wrong of her to insert herself into his life and struggles even though that is what she’s been doing ever since Sakaar. Looking out for him. And he’s been looking out for her. Now, after everything that happened...Brunnhilde isn’t sure. Sometimes she misses Thor so desperately that it makes her tremble. She wants to bully her way inside his shelter of a house and shake his shoulders and scream in his face.  _ Remember everything we’ve been through? Don’t you remember what we’ve survived together?  _

The years pass. Miek and Korg take up residence with Thor, occasionally reporting back to Brunnhilde. _Yes, he seemed better today._ _No, today was bad. Real bad. He was angry. He was sad. He was lonely._

Brunnhilde never explicitly asks for these updates, and she’s relieved that she doesn’t have to. She’s not sure if she would have been able to get the words out. 

Bruce and Rocket arrive in the back of a pickup. They steal Thor away, and she is barely able to catch a glimpse of him before he disappears into their ship. His hair is longer, but his posture is the same. Slumped. Defeated. 

Bruce doesn’t exactly explain to Brunnhilde what is going on, but he tells her to get battle-ready, and that they might need her. They might need all her people. Then he presses her close, and kisses her softly in her hair, and disappears into the sky. Brunnhilde tries not to cry as she watches them go.

They win. 

There are casualties, of course. There always are in a war. But the Avengers win. Thanos is finished. Everyone who was “vanished” is now back. The population of New Asgard doubles. When the Asgardians return home, there are celebrations in the streets. Fish are fried, beer is heartily chugged, and songs are sung. 

Funerals are had, of course, but it is different now. Brunnhilde is no longer crouched on the rocks, offering up the last bit of her strength to give her people some rest. Now, they sit quietly around her, and let her draw power and love from them, and let her see their eyes and their faces. The Asgardians send their warriors to Valhalla together, and they cry together, and they wail and dance and press each other close. Things are different.

And now. Thor stands beside Brunnhilde in the grasses that so deeply remind her of her childhood, high above the rough ocean, and tells her that she should lead their people.

“I should what?” A laugh startles out of her, although nothing about this is funny.

“You should be king,” Thor says quietly. He stands straight ahead, facing the water, but his eyes slide down to her. One brown, one blue. Both so sad, still. 

His posture is better, and he has some of his swing back, Brunnhilde can tell. She saw him fight Thanos, saw Stormbreaker cut down enemies with the fervor she remembers from when he was still full of life and hope. But his eyes…

Brunnhilde’s breath catches in her chest when she realizes that the look in his eyes is the look she wore for hundreds of years. A look of loss. The look of someone who does not know their place in the world or how to move forward. She turns to stare out over the waves. 

“I would gladly be king,” she says, and she means it. “But only if you stay here. Rule by my side. Stand with me.”

Thor starts to shake his head, but Brunnhilde grabs his wrist and pulls him down. Forces him to look into her eyes. 

“The people need you,” she says firmly. “I need you.”

Brunnhilde thinks, as she stares into Thor’s face, that this is the first time they’ve truly looked at each other in many, many years. She remembers the feeling of his beard against her cheek and how he smelled. Sharp like a storm, and full of warmth and comfort and sweetness. She remembers how soft his hair was, and how gently she would comb her fingers through it as he slept. She remembers nights spent together, hours passing with the two of them simply lying side by side, fingers folded, staving off each other’s nightmares. She remembers so many looks, just like this one. So many almost-kisses, so much fear, and hesitancy. She knows that Thor remembers all these same moments. She can see it in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and in his half-open mouth, and the angle of his brows. 

Thor gapes for a moment, his arm still in her grasp, and then he’s pulling her towards him, and she’s crushed against his chest, and she can see and smell nothing but Thor, and something loosens in her throat. 

“Okay,” he agrees. “Okay. Let’s do this together. Let’s be there for our people.”

Brunnhilde nods against his chest. This is where they are supposed to be.

It is still difficult, ruling New Asgard. Brunnhilde stands by Thor’s side when things get tough, and lets him lean on her, and draw on her strength, and he does the same for her. They are a pair, and they are a unit, and they do everything together. They make decisions together; they visit upon their people together. They sleep together, eat together, laugh, and cry together. 

When Brunnhilde feels Thor begins to struggle, trembling by her side, she gently excuses them and leads him somewhere safe. She presses a warm palm to his chest and grounds him as he shudders through his breaths until the heavy, overwhelming pressure of leadership bleeds out of his body. She brushes the tears from his eyes with the pads of her thumbs, and smooths his long hair back from his forehead, and kisses the corners of his mouth, lightly, over and over, until he smiles. 

When Thor shakes awake in the early morning, haunted by visions of his mother, and Loki, and Thanos, and Hela, Brunnhilde curls his head against her stomach and runs her hands along his shoulders and spine until he is still. She unhooks his fingers from where they clench desperately in the bottom of her shirt and curls them into her own, her palm dry and smooth in his. She slides down on the bed until she is beside Thor, faces inches apart, and presses herself flush against his body, so he knows he is not alone. 

Brunnhilde soothes and cares and kisses until Thor no longer feels ashamed, and no longer shies away from her touch. She gives, and he gives, and slowly, they heal. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you dearly for reading! I wrote this last summer and then entirely forgot about it until now, so I figured I'd go ahead put it out into the world. Please leave a comment - I love hearing what you think!


End file.
